Davey the Fat Boy wrote:
True enough...but Bowie expanded it beyond the harmonic palate AND lyrical abstraction to add visual and theatrical elements. At the very least, he drastically upped the “tah-dah!!” factor from where all of those guys were.
What year did "MacArthur Park" come out?
Seriously, though - if we're discussing his music ('LOM', specifically...but, I dunno, 'Space Oddity' seems no less relevant as shorthand for 'emotionally resonant AND expansive'), I don't personally find the more striking, ambitious or advanced elements any more jarring or contrived than things that had existed in other people's works (I mean, you start comparing someone like Laura Nyro to Willie Dixon or Merle Haggard, and
anyone could claim any number of things about comparative fussiness and perceived 'vanity of intent').
I dunno...Brel, Brecht, Rodgers and Hammerstein, etc. - and I'm only omitting jazz and classical as a means of "going reasonably concise" with my end of this conversation - all producing fanciful work that people would choose to cover in any number of idioms or emulate/incorporate in some way. I suppose the "grandness" or "showiness" of things is not a sword on which I necessarily want to see Bowie impaled to any greater extent than he legitimately deserves. I mean, I get what nathan meant all those years back when he said that Side One of
Diamond Dogs reminded him of
Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I think there's a hell of a lot more to Bowie's music than that - specifically an elemental and emotional core that is mostly all we're left with nearly half a century on from the age of him, Alice Cooper, the Pink Floyd, the Move, the Velvet Underground, the Doors, etc.
all seeking to expand the format of live music in one way or another. I look at prime Bowie the same way I look at every song I've ever loved or admired - just the work of another person chasing a meaningful or resonant organic idea with a butterfly net and hoping to document it. And occasionally hitting the mark with exceptional impact.
Naturally, I take your meaning re: things like the 12 bar format or a three note melody over three chords being a hell of a challenging place to create magic. Why, only yesterday, I was marveling at the Doors' performance/arrangement of "Back Door Man" on the first record and thinking "at least 99 out of 100 performers would struggle to ignite the compelling essence of this particular song in any useful way". We say similar things about AC/DC. As a writer, I look for my own reflection in that type of trad. arr. simplicity and I mostly struggle to see it. I don't think that necessarily speaks to the inherent greatness or superiority of a lower chord number (and I count myself as a Neil obsessive/disciple who ultimately finds 'Helpless' pretty disposable) - but, yes, I'm always secretly proud if I'm able to make the lightning strike with an unusually small number of tools/ingredients.
It's an analysis that can get needlessly circular - why do I see multitudes within one pathologically basic thing and not another? Why does one seemingly complex thing look like God's own handwriting and why does another look like a clumsy kid wearing a "genius costume" (I'm no massive Costello fan as it happens)? I don't want to say it's a total red herring - but I would certainly say that the (in no way unanimously perceived) failings and successes of these two songs may reside in any number of places no matter how much we're drawn to identify the (obviously, far more quantifiable) HOW rather than the WHY.